Lent

I am blipping this Lent (in fact, in general) rather than blogging - a daily photo with a short reflection or factual report. But it feels important to keep a little simmer here...

This is my fourth Lent in Cowal & Bute and Argyll & The Isles, and it is a good feeling to no longer remember exactly which year which thing/service/course/reflection was done.  Ministry as a cyclic process, picking up the rhythm of the years and the liturgical calendar, can be a helpful concept, I believe.  I am, by nature, an objective driven person (some excellent training I have done recently confirmed this in abundance!), so to step back from projects and objectives and enter an ongoing flow is quite, quite different.

I am also conscious that this ministry is a long-term activity, with short term projects and issues, but overall it is a long, never-ending business. A couple of my predecessors as rector here (altho I am just a priest in charge...) are buried in our graveyard. One day I will metaphorically join them.  This is my shift here, my turn to look after these people, to help them worship, to walk alongside them.

Lent is a useful time to reflect on this. But not this Lent.  There is a busyness this year, not in the charges, but elsewhere, which is stretching things and making life tighter.  Maybe that just happens, as time passes and things become wore interwoven in a diocese and a province.  But it will be good to find some time this Lent to reflect upon this journey, the few short years spent here so far.